Phillip Valentine Tobias was born on October 14, 1925. He initially attended St Andrew’s School and later moved to Durban High School, where he matriculated in 1942.
At the age of 15, even before he finished his schooling, he decided to study medicine, in honour of his sister, who died of diabetes.
He asked the family doctor why his sister and his grandmother had the disease while he and his mother did not.
The reply was that there was no one in South Africa suitably qualified in genetics to answer the question.
When he completed his matric, Tobias enrolled at the University of the Witwatersrand’s Medical School in 1944, later branching into genetics.
He established the Institute for the Study of Man in Africa (ISMA) in 1956 to advance the study of human ancestry and evolution, heredity, genetic composition and bodily structure in Africa.
He later succeeded Raymond Dart, the outgoing professor, becoming the Professor and Head of the Department of Anatomy – the first South African-born person in the Chair of any medical faculty in the country – holding the position until 1993.
Upon his retirement, he was awarded the title of Professor Emeritus, and became head of the research department at the Sterkfontein Caves.
Tobias always had a great love for the palaentological digs at the Sterkfontein Caves outside Krugersdorp on Gauteng’s West Rand, where he led a team of researchers.
He was instrumental in the process of having the remains of Saartjie Bartmann, which were exhibited in Paris as ethnological and sexual curiosities in the 19th century, returned to South Africa, and was nominated for a Nobel Prize three times.
Professor Tobias died in Johannesburg at Wits University Donald Gordon Medical Centre on 7 June 2012, after a three-month illness.
Information sourced from: South African History Online.
